First, I don't routinely look at the Novien for every chart, but that's at least partly because it's a small pain to calculate it digitally. This will probably change at least a little (maybe a lot) when TMSA has Noviens available.SteveS wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 6:51 am Jim, since in the last few weeks I started paying more attention to Fagan/Bradley Novien Chart, what are your specific methods for using the Novien Chart? Have you already posted these methods in another thread?
Janus calculates the Novien, which I can tap on the one computer where Janus is installed (but I usually don't because Janus is so slow to load). It only takes another half-minute to trick Solar Fire into producing, so time isn't the issue. Ultimately, I don't look at it often because the natal chart is so complete and full on its own that I rarely need anything else. Nonetheless, for charts where I want to dig a little deeper, I'll check the Novien. Additionally, I think the Novien encodes important mathematical patterns that may be fundamental to other things on which we rely, so I feel I need to keep paying attention to it just to keep these matters floating into my brain.
Here is what I check (and don't) when I look at a person's Novien as an adjunct to the natal:
- I draw the chart as Fagan did, equal house from Moon. This is mostly a display option, but also keeps my attention on the fact that the Novien is primarily a lunar chart, showing a specifically lunar level of the psyche.
- I do not include angles, partly on the theory that angles are wrong to put in any sort of harmonic chart, and partly from experience that they just don't work. (For example, I'm clearly not fundamentally a Sun-Venus on Descendant and Neptune on Midheaven person, but that's what adding the angles would describe. I've seen a lot of failed, wrong descriptions from adding angles.)
- I use conjunctions, oppositions, and squares only. These probably work at both Class 1 and Class 2 orbs (at least out to Fagan's "pentade" 5° orb), but, as you would expect, I focus on Class 1 orbs, i.e., out to 3°. (This is partly because stronger aspects are going to be more obvious, and partly because, by the time I consult a Novien, I already have so many aspects flinging around that I don't need a new large pile of them. But somewhat wider ones, including all Class 2 orbs, probably are effective though weaker.)
- Controversially, I no longer consider signs valid in Noviens. This, of course, was something that got Fagan most excited, but I have to disagree (at least, my current thoughts). I don't think people really have "a second Moon sign." (Dropping this detail is what allowed me to make the clean break from Navamsa to Novien. It looked like Novien planet positions were most accurate, but there were too many cases where the Novien's Moon sign made no sense.)
- First thing I do is look at the Novien by itself, seeing the conjunctions, oppositions, and squares. (In my case, this repeats my close natal Venus-Pluto square and Jupiter-Uranus conjunction then adds the important 0°27' Moon-Mercury square. With wider orbs, I get Sun-Pluto square, Venus-Neptune square, and a wide Neptune-Pluto opposition. In your case, Steve, you get Mercury opposite Pluto 33' and conjunct Mars, Mars conjunct Jupiter, and Mars opposite Pluto, with wider orbs adding Moon-Neptune, Mercury-Jupiter, and Jupiter-Pluto.)
- Like Fagan, I then put the nativity around the Novien. It's easiest to do this as a 90° dial because I'm looking for close (Class 1) conjunctions, oppositions, and squares between Novien and natal.
- I've experimented with "Novien on natal" vs. "natal on Novien" (i.e., which is the outer ring, acting more like a transit to the inner ring). I have found that most consistently treating the natal like it's a set of transits to the Novien is pretty descriptive, while treating the Novien like transits to the natal is less convincing. Since natal modifies Novien, the Novien is the deeper, more fundamental layer and the regular nativity is a more sophisticated and later layer we "build" atop it. This is consistent with the idea that the Novien is a lunar chart, showing a foundation layer of the psyche atop which we build our more sophisticated character. (It's not just subconsciousness, but it's something similar to the layer of subconsciousness.)
- In my own natal-Novien aspects, the most obvious aspects are natal Jupiter-Uranus to Novien Moon-Mercury AND natal Moon square Novien Jupiter-Uranus. (Moon to Jupiter-Uranus goes both ways.) Also, natal Mercury opposes Novien Mars.
- In your natal-Novien aspects, Steve, the most obvious thing is that your natal Jupiter-Ascendant falls tightly atop your Novien Mars-Jupiter, interacting (with larger orbs) with your exact Novien Mercury-Pluto opposition. There is also the almost partile natal Venus square Novien Saturn. Also, Novien Moon is opposed by your natal Mercury-Neptune (almost exactly at their midpoint).
- In summary: First, close major hard aspects within the Novien. Second, the same aspects from the natal to the Novien. - That's my full method in a nutshell.
- Transits to Noviens probably are valid, at least in a limited way. All I've tested are transits to my Novien Moon. These are effective but I don't have an opinion yet on how powerful or important they are. I was going to start watching transits to my Novien Sun this month, but I don't have any.
- NOTE 2/16/24: I have since confirmed that transits to Sun also work. Possibly transits to all Novien positions work. None of them are very strong, though. I believe the transits are not all that important themselves but the fact that they work at all is important for confirming the Novien in contrast to the Navamsa. (Navamsa transits fail, with a few examples of them being quite wrong.)
- Hindu astrologers treat the Navamsa primarily as a marriage chart, though many of them also will read it more widely as a second nativity. I think Fagan exactly nailed what this is really all about: It's not a marriage chart in the sense of contracts or practical-legal details but, rather, is all about sex. The lunar layer of the psyche is primarily the instinctual layer, connected foremost to sex and reproduction. This, in turn, provides the baseline or foundation on top of which we build the rest of the mature psyche.
- In theory, this lunar layer of the psyche would also pertain to other instinctual matters such as survival and the way subconsciousness manages our health. I haven't been able to confirm that the Novien is a health chart, nor is that part of its tradition, but I mention this. [NOTE 2/16/24: See the other thread in this forum on the Novien and health indicators.]
- This also raises the question of whether the Novien shows distinctly infantile behavior. I don't think it usually does (in the way that phrase is intended, i.e., immature or even pathological behavior). It seems that what the Novien shows retains its innocence and yet also can mature. However, afflictions, especially between natal and Novien, can show where this innocence gets wounded. (For example, look at how Ian Brady's remarkable Novien not only has a tight Moon-Saturn-Pluto configuration, but has natal Sun right atop it, making it a core feature of his maturing character.)
- The other enormously important detail of the Novien is in synastry, for which I'll start a separate post below.